Syracuse, N.Y. -- After decades of pollution that turned Onondaga Lake into a toxic cesspool, Honeywell has agreed to pay $9.5 million in damages and build 20 restoration projects.
The federal Department of Justice filed documents in federal court Wednesday. The state Department of Environmental Conservation issued a news release about the settlement after 5 p.m. Friday of the weekend leading into Christmas.
When the projects were first proposed in April, the DEC initially gave a three-day notice of a single public meeting about the 73-page plan that had taken decades to compile. Under public pressure, the DEC finally agreed to hold four more sessions, including a formal public hearing.
Despite public comments and criticisms at those meetings and in writing, the plan agreed to this week is essentially the same as the one proposed in April.
The settlement requires Honeywell to build projects that include trail extensions, habitat for fish and birds, and fishing piers. It ends the decades-long battle to get Honeywell to clean up, and restore the damage done to the environment, by decades of industrial pollution.
"With this proposed settlement, the communities of Onondaga Lake are one step closer to reclaiming this resource for the people and wildlife that live here," said David Stilwell, New York field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a news release issued by the state Friday. "These funds would support both habitat restoration and protection for the benefit of fish and wildlife, as well as improved opportunities for people to enjoy Onondaga Lake."
The news federal Department of Justice says the total value of the settlement is $26 million, but does not explain how it arrived at that number.
The court filing says Honeywell will make direct payments of up to $9.5 million to the state and federal governments for oversight and project costs. Most of that -- about $8 million -- will be for maintenance of the projects. Honeywell has already paid the federal government $2.3 million in "assessment costs," the filing says.
Earlier this week, Honeywell announced that the cleanup of the lake bottom had been completed. Honeywell still needs to file reports with the DEC, and other cleanup work remains along the shore and at other contaminated sites around the lake.
Ten years ago, the state estimated the cleanup would cost $451 million. Honeywell officials decline to discuss the project's actual costs.
The restoration settlement is in addition the actual cleanup, and seeks to compensate the public for all of the years lost to recreation because of the pollution.
The settlement involves Honeywell, the state and federal governments, and Onondaga County. The county has agreed to maintain five of the projects for 25 years. Those projects are on or next to county land along the lake.
The projects were developed by Honeywell and the federal and state governments. The Onondaga Nation had initially been part of the process, but withdrew in 2015 when it became clear the nation's historical and cultural losses were not going to be compensated, nation attorney Joe Heath said
"How do you put a dollar sign on the loss of a sacred lake?" Heath said in April when the projects were announced. "The leadership of the nation was not willing to put a dollar amount on a sacred loss."
The settlement won't be final until it's approved by a federal judge after a 30-day comment period. The exact dates of that comment period were not provided.
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